"Novell's new SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 is beating Microsoft Vista to market by months, and the Xen virtualization features in the upcoming SuSE Enterprise Server are right on target. In short, Novell's Linux roadmap looks great. Now, can Novell get business customers to travel its road?"

Sure they can. All they need to get is get a CEO that they know and respect and for Novell to start EFFECTIVELY MARKETING their products.

The main thing is getting a CEO into the CEO of business with a really clear message as to why their product is better (Novell has better admin and networking software and application servers through Linux) and figure out a way to get these CEO to stop thinking it is cool for a billionare to come visit them so they'll buy his products. Only then will Novell truly turn the corner.

I'll start by saying that I haven't been able to use SUSE since 10.0: I didn't have proper sound (I needed to reconfigure it after every reboot) and video support (even after installing the Nvidia driver I had a black slice on the right of my screen)
10.1 beta 8 supports my sound card without problems, but I still can't get a semi-decent video configuration. This puzzles me, as virtually every other linux distro doesn't seem to have any issue.

Having said all that, SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 will be tested a lot more before being released, and the features look great.
Now the big question is: can Novell convince OEMs to ship computers with SLED 10 in any significant numbers?
If common sense were to prevail, the answer should be a resounding "yes". After all Vista is late and not such a big improvement over XP.
And then you have of course Mac OS X, but it is extremely unlike that Apple is going to license it to other hardware vendors. And this is a major mistake, IMO, because they have once again a historical chance of having the prevailing operating system in the market.

As long as Linux enthusiasts keep believing nonsense like this, Linux will never ever overtake / threaten Microsoft. Know your enemy. Denial ain't the path to walk if you want to dent Microsoft's hold on the market.

I use Win XP quite a bit and I have had the chance of seeing Vista working, so I don't believe I am your typical linux zealot.
That Vista isn't such a big improvement over Win XP is an opinion shared by many people, even in articles published here.
Notice that it is no reason of joy for me if Vista could be a disappointment. I am above all a computer user and a geek, and I would welcome a truly good OS, regardless of who makes it. Similarly I would buy an Imac if I could afford it.
Microsoft needs to forget everything about their past operating systems and start from scratch, IMO: they have the resources to do so.

As long as Linux enthusiasts keep believing nonsense like this, Linux will never ever overtake / threaten Microsoft. Know your enemy. Denial ain't the path to walk if you want to dent Microsoft's hold on the market.

Come on Thom stop acting like an immature Windows fanboy if you disagree with that statement give some arguements why its wrong.

Still as a Linux enthusiast even if the above opinion is true, which I think it very likely is, it gives Novell nothing more than a tiny opening to break into the corporate desktop market. But still it is there on any rational analysis.

How can he be a windows fanboy if he uses OS X and Linux (I believe) more? Jesus, just because someone doesn't agree with you, doesn't make them a Windows Fanboy.

----

Back on topic..

I agree with the sentiments that the registry sucks.

At this point, there's not much Microsoft can do without breaking a lot of things. I know they are making improvements to the registry with Virtualization, but there's only so much you can do to a bad implementation of something. When it was first put in place, it wasn't such a terrible idea at the time, but it outgrew its usefulness fast and got abused to hell and back.

As long as Linux enthusiasts keep believing nonsense like this, Linux will never ever overtake / threaten Microsoft. Know your enemy. Denial ain't the path to walk if you want to dent Microsoft's hold on the market.

The best lesson was the cold war - NEVER underestimate what your enemies capabilities are; overestimate, over achieve just incase.

Now the big question is: can Novell convince OEMs to ship computers with SLED 10 in any significant numbers?

No, because OEMs have no reason to ship it and because Microsoft utterly controls the distribution channel. You need another method of distribution, and to make it totally freely available, to get around that. Novell's enterprise business model will not allow them to do that.

Sorry, it ain't going to be done by Novell, Red Hat, Sun, Linspire, Xandros or any of the others. Their market reach is rather like Apple (although not as big) - destined to get so far but no further.

and video support (even after installing the Nvidia driver I had a black slice on the right of my screen)
10.1 beta 8 supports my sound card without problems, but I still can't get a semi-decent video configuration.

Use xvidtune to get a Modeline that you can add to the monitor section of xorg.conf.

For the BILLIONTH time. Apple exists because Steve Jobs wanted to sell computer HARDWARE. The only reason they created an OS and apps to run on it is because it is darn hard to sell hardware if you can't do anything useful with it. Why do you think they didn't sell millions of Altair computers.

Steve Jobs isn't interested in selling MAC OS X on anything other than Apple hardware. The only reason iTunes is on windows is so that people on windows can see the Apple way and hopefully pursuade them to buy Apple hardware NeXT time. Which, just happens to Mac OS X on it.

And before you say, "then they should sell Apple computers with Windows on it. Why would you make a great bun and then want to sell a turd on it instead of some really good hamburger? You wouldn't. So I doubt very much you will ever see Apple selling any versions of any MS OS on Apple computers.

Except that if one wants to believe to recent stats, they are selling fewer and fewer computers (I can find links if you want)
Imagine Mac OS X could eventually get a share of 50% of OSes: wouldn't that mean much more money than the likely 2.5% of computers share they are now selling?
And do they really want to be remembered as the ones who missed the opportunity to shape the world (of computers, of course)?

- The have moved PARTS into user space, but the heavy lifting still resides in kernel space.

*more code written with new code replacing leagcy stuff

- And more layers upon layers of legacy backwards compatibility that is going to come back and bite them in the ass this time around.

Sometimes you've just gotta dump the past, and move on - if you need your 20 year old application to work, it is pretty obvious that you neither have any intention of upgrading the application let alone upgrading the operating system.

Sometimes you've just gotta dump the past, and move on - if you need your 20 year old application to work, it is pretty obvious that you neither have any intention of upgrading the application let alone upgrading the operating system.

They just can't. That's the whole problem with Microsoft. I'm sure the engineers over there are DYING to excorcise all the crap from Windows, in order to show the REAL power of Windows NT (the NT kernel is considered to be a pretty decent and well-built kernel), to show that they CAN create cool stuff. Because they can-- remember Singularity? [1][2][3]

The problem is: they cannot. They have too many customers relying on old crap who'd be seriously pissed off if Microsoft ditches the legacy stuff. Microsoft isn't Apple or Torvalds who just don't give a rat's ass about backwards compatibility.

They just can't. That's the whole problem with Microsoft. I'm sure the engineers over there are DYING to excorcise all the crap from Windows, in order to show the REAL power of Windows NT (the NT kernel is considered to be a pretty decent and well-built kernel), to show that they CAN create cool stuff. Because they can-- remember Singularity? [1][2][3]

The problem is: they cannot. They have too many customers relying on old crap who'd be seriously pissed off if Microsoft ditches the legacy stuff. Microsoft isn't Apple or Torvalds who just don't give a rat's ass about backwards compatibility.

Dear god, reading and comprehension seems to be a VERY big issue for people around here. Who said anything about dumping Windows NT? Windows NT design IS fundamentally secure and stable - read up on that before you make a jackass of yourself.

Read up on what work arounds they have provided for applications that expect administrator privilages and how they're providing legacy support ALSO read up on the issues with win32 API, and how everytime they fix an issue, they must provide a 'compatibility function' as to allow applications to continue using the function in the old way.

You set a target, and say, "anything not designed purely for Windows XP and multi-user, we won't provide backwards compatibility for" - the uptake WILL be slower, but at the same time, it will force a new level of quality onto the ISV's, by demanding that they actually LISTEN to Microsoft when they say something has been fixed, depreciated or removed from Windows.

Because I needed an example of cool stuff they could do? I'm sorry, but I did not anticipate the weird link you made between me mentioning Singularity, and you thinking that I thought that you ment stop using the NT kernel/subsystem.

People, if you understood the above text, you just passed your alcohol test.

Linux has advanced far enough that it can be used by an average office worker, and it's a lot cheaper. The OS, Office, Email, and a good browser is all that's needed. I don't know what the price will be for Novell's Enterprise Desktop 10, but when you think of what is included, $100 is much better than the money you'd pay for Windows, MS Office, and Exchange licenses.

General office users can probably use SLED 10. More advanced users will still probably need Windows. Ultra-Advanced users will use their OS of choice, whether that's Windows, an Apple OS, or a flavor of *nix.

Deleted it for Dapper flight 5. Dapper doesn't feel like a a beta and is in my opinion the better choice for a long time supported Linux. And it's free

Btw, and the price tag of SLED:
I don't want to pay for SLED10 if I they don't give a me - for example - some DVD codecs

No, you installed Suse 10.1 Beta 8, which is the community-oriented OpenSuse distro.
SLED is a different product, though Novell is to blame for the confusion over that naming convention. SLED used to be Novell Linux Desktop, Suse Linux used to be OpenSuse which used to be, er, SuSE Linux.

DVD Codecs (or XGL for that matter) will not be an issue for the enterprise customers Novell is targetting with SLED.

DVD Codecs (or XGL for that matter) will not be an issue for the enterprise customers Novell is targetting with SLED.

Why would one need DVD codecs anyway? DVD playes for televisions are so cheap these days, why the hell would you want to sit in an uncomfortable desk chair with a small screen when you can lay back on a sofa with a big ass screen and a complete setup?

The graphical issues outline one problem with alot of distribution companies - their complete and utter unwillingness to work with ATI and Nvidia, and do what ever it takes to bundle tested and compatible drivers provided by the hardware vendors themselves.

Articles which suggest that Microsoft is Novell's #1 competitor are aiming at the wrong target, imho. Novell's most dangerous competitor is Red Hat. If Novell is to establish itself as a solid open source contender, then it needs to grow Linux fast and start to take large chunks of what Red Hat has come to consider its business.

If it doesn't start doing this pretty darn soon then Novell will lost all credibility. Those existing netware users who might be tempted by Novell's new offerings will lose faith and go elsewhere. The ultimate humiliation would be if, in say two or three years, Ubuntu had entered the enterprise market and was doing more business than Novel. It's not that far-fetched either.

This has nothing to do with the quality of SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, which sounds excellent. But the idea that it is going to take down Big Bill and the evil Vista monster is just risible.

SMB's are most tightly bound to MS provided default functionality and easy access to it due to skilled IT force shortages. Unless you clone 90% of what current MS products offer (inlc. effortless migration and reliable compatibility) for that segment it's not at all low hanging fruit. The retraining and switch costs are also quite largecompared to prospected benefits for small entities.
It may not be obvious but in spite of greater innertia corps are more likely to consider migration as they can afford to employ competent people.
Of course small company may already employ some linux guru by accident but that is rather an exception.

ah, not necessarily, having delt with them, I'd say all they need is a good office suite - OpenOffice.org 2.x would do theh trick, and an accounting package like MYOB which allows them to track their business, and automate their tax filing at the end of the year.

Unlike enterprise, small to medium businesses don't have a tonne of automated server stuff, or specially written applications - they simply use off the shelf generic software to get things done, if it can't be done on the computer, they tend to do it by hand.

Get MYOB ported over to their version of Linux, and you'll have 80% of the SMB market in Australia and New Zealand in your back pocket - which surprisingly enough, is a strong market for Novell when compared to others.

You missed the dozen IBM linux ads that were aired worldwide last year, then.

(you know, the "basket team one", and others)

Plus, the "blond child" IBM linux ad was aired on tv in the states, I think. And it was a purely "linux" and "opensource" ad, with almost no IBM product pushing in it.
(besides, most IBM ads lately only push the IBM brand and corporate image, without ever mentioning products)

Grrr. Why does every desktop linux conversation turn into a competition with Vista, with the conclusion that Vista's delay will lead to linux domination (or OS X, depending on the thread)?

SLED is an ENTERPRISE distribution. Enterprises don't care about Vista. They won't touch it. They'll buy new systems pre-installed with it and they'll wipe it out and replace it with an image of XP with their standard corp config. If history is any indication it will be a year or two before companies are even willing to consider mass-migrations.

If SLED is competing with anyone, it's generic Windows as an application platform, as in a platform for running applications. That's the core problem that will hold back adoption, and that's where efforts should be focused. Wobby freaking windows is not going to win over the F500.

SLED should be positioned as a transitional solution, start rolling out managed desktops, they have the tools to do it. Convince customers to start deploying mandatory MS-based apps on servers and use Citrix. Find some way to weasel in there and get a foot in the door.

But SLED is not a replacement for Windows and Vista's delay means nothing. It's simply an alternative, ideal in some circumstances and unworkable in others.

and even Linux has dll in there own form of librarys. and the registry is not nessassrly a bad thing, if used correctly. which registry for system stuff, and xml based config files for app stuff which is the direction MS is going.

as far as defraging goes, who knows i read somewhere there are defrag tools of 8nix so who knows the benifits of it.

Was a massive binary corruptible Registry ever a good idea? (e.g., ever need to edit the Registry on a box that would not boot and there was no room to install a parallel Windows occurence? The "Recovery Console" can't view/edit the Registry.) How many software run points will there be for malware and rootkits to launch? Windows currently has so many now it's quite ridiculous:

There are a LOT more major things under the hood. Graphics subsystem, audio subsystem, network subsystem, driver framework, all of which are getting overhauls, and there are more things as well.

Which is good from the viewpoint of Joe Customer who really doesn't know how (nor should they have to) to lock down their desktop so pesky little virii and trojans can't be installed on a drive-by basis.

However, it's a really bad thing if you were planning on running that 5 year old application that your job absolutely requires you to run that only works because of some backwards compatible component in XP that goes back to NT 4.0 days.

To demonstrate how idiotic some of the Application vendors are, there's a major medical company that provides a piece of software that requires the Microsoft JVM. Sun's JVM won't work. At all.

Vista is a *much* needed overhaul of XP. So much so, that most of the "Cool Stuff" won't make it into the initial shipment, and the OS will be largely incompatible with legacy applications.

I agree thats poor logic. Even Gnome uses a 'regisrty' now. and Linux is full of libararys and dependacy issues.

and as far of filesystem, NTFS is a pretty good fileststem. it has ACLs, is journeled and pretty soon will have transactional support. sure it has to be defraged, but thats not a big deal and its not required.

i have NT 4 servers still running without issue and that get pretty heavy usage. these things are form like 1998.

and linux, is not even compatible with itself, not even same distro stuff.....

"As long as Linux enthusiasts keep believing nonsense like this, Linux will never ever overtake / threaten Microsoft. Know your enemy. Denial ain't the path to walk if you want to dent Microsoft's hold on the market."

too true.

on a different note, i'm really pleased (and surprised) with how much effort Novel is ploughing into Linux, and SUSE in particular.
as a KDE user i was very dubious about the Novel corporate Gnome mentality trying to push KDE out of SUSE, but i am coming round to the opinion that they REALLY do intend to support both desktops equally. while this would worry me from a quality (of either) standpoint, Novel/SUSE does have the resources to ensure the quality of both desktops well into the future.

"I was impressed by Novell's Linux strategy, particularly its decision to use a common code base for all supported versions of the operating system. [...] The common code base approach also makes sense from an applications and integration perspective. It is really important for applications like the Beagle search tool. Beagle will function the same way on a server as it will on the desktop."

Wait... does this one belong to same community shouting that servers should be modularized and that servers should only include a basic set of services?

Weren't they shouting at Microsoft because they kept including (Windows) media support or DirectX support in their server versions of Windows and other components? When MS replied that was for integration purposes they laughed it off.

Cool, now we discover this is something impressing. :- Irony *is* intended.

(Sorry, couldn't resist. I was *not* impressed by short memory this one has... are things good or bad depending on who does them? I see...)

Wait... does this one belong to same community shouting that servers should be modularized and that servers should only include a basic set of services?

Where does it say anything that negates that? Just because it is based on common code does not mean that both operating systems come with the same packages. Even if they did they are not integrated like Microsoft and can be unistalled or swapped out for other applications.

Weren't they shouting at Microsoft because they kept including (Windows) media support or DirectX support in their server versions of Windows and other components? When MS replied that was for integration purposes they laughed it off.

Linux doesn't have DirectX or anything like it. Beagle can be a useful tool for things other desktop searching. Remember there is no web browser or media player integrated into any linux operating system.

"Why would one need DVD codecs anyway? DVD playes for televisions are so cheap these days, why the hell would you want to sit in an uncomfortable desk chair with a small screen when you can lay back on a sofa with a big ass screen and a complete setup?"

As a geek, I've seen articles about what's going in to Vista final, and it looks kind of neat. Nothing spectacular.

As a consumer, I see nothing new in Vista except it'll have more machine-slowing, optional eye-candy.

I use Windows 2000 at work and Windows XP at home. I just can't get excited about Vista. I could if they were including WinFS, and (as a geek) if they were actually cleaning out the cruft (rather than building a cleaner interface to existing libraries), but that ain't the case.

I'll probably end up getting it, but not because it excites me. I've heard the same from some pro-Microsoft groups I've worked with.

Before Vista is sold on oem pcs, when Vista is sold for upgraders, will any commercial flavor of linux outsell Vista on release date?

I wish Suse could, but lets be realistic. People are going to flock to stores like BestBuy, Circuit City, etc. Doesn't anyone remember when XP came out? The Best Buy in my home town, Laurel, MD, USA had a line covering the length of the store before opening. And XP was not much of a change from Win2K. I think Vista is definetly more of an improvement from XP: compared to XP from Win2k. Even though Win2k was not marketed for Joe Smo consumer, the people who are going to buy Vista as an upgrade are probably not Joe Smo, more techy than anything else.

Its true that MS has more market penetration, even with upgraders, but even my local Best Buy has SUSE10. I see the copies collecting dust, I think I may be the only one buying them. I even wonder why buy them, when distros like Ubuntu are getting pretty good.

Please don't tear me apart for being non-specific, I'm trying to be as simple and uncontroversial in my generalizations. My current OSes are Suse9.3(home)/OSX(laptop)/XP64(work). I've gone through dozens of distros, bsds, etc...at a certain point, I just want to install and run with it. So I probably won't upgrade to Vista immediately.